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After reading “Plot Twist” (www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleId=6791), make
a case for whether you do or do not think Newbery and Caldecott award–winning
books have greater appeal for children than other quality books that have not won
an award.
L
iterary Elements
Reading books by award-winning authors and illustrators is one way of discovering
some of the best books available. However, there is a multitude of children’s books
in print, and more new ones are published each year. The list of award-winning
books is minuscule compared to what is available. How can you select the best from
this mountain of possibilities? One way to assess the literary merit of fiction books
is to analyze and evaluate the literary elements or various parts of a fiction story:
characters, point of view, setting, plot, theme, style, and tone.
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P A R T I :
Entering the World of Children’s Literature
Characters
Characters
Characters are who the story is about, and the action revolves around them. Brown
and Stephens (2007) believe that “the effective development of the main character
may be the single most important element of the work” (p. 170 ). Authors develop
characters primarily from three sources: (1) from the narrator’s description of physi-
cal appearance and personality; (2) from other characters—what others think of
characters and what others’ actions are toward them; and (3) from the characters
themselves—what they think, what they say, and what they do. Expect the latter to
be the most revealing. Through actions, the most convincing evidence about char-
acter is revealed.
Main characters, especially the central character or protagonist, must be fully de-
veloped; that is, readers should learn of the characters’ many traits—their strengths
as well as their weaknesses. These complex characters are called round characters .
It is essential that readers relate to them; and when an author has created a well-
developed character, the reader can imagine what might happen to her or him if the
book continued. “The main characters in an excellent work of fiction for children are
rounded, fully developed characters who undergo change in response to life-altering
events” (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 1999, p. 29 ). This capacity for change defines
such characters as dynamic .
Supporting characters are less well developed than the main characters; only a
few of their traits may be revealed. Sometimes they are flat characters who exhibit
only one side of their personality. Flat characters are often stereotypes who possess
only the traits considered typical of their particular group. Flat characters are usually
static , undergoing no change in personality throughout the book.
Rothlein and Meinbach (1996) provide a dozen excellent activities for learn-
ing about characterization. One of these, the character continuum, appears in
Box 2.1 . To help children gain a deeper understanding of a particular character,
encourage them to analyze the inner qualities of the character as they determine
where on the character continuum he or she would fall. With the exception of ste-
reotyped characters (often found in traditional literature), most characters should
fall somewhere between the continuum’s extremes. This activity encourages read-
ers to use higher-order thinking skills to view characters as neither all good nor
all bad, but as having some desirable traits and some not so desirable—just as
real people have.
Point of View
Point of View
A book’s point of view is the perspective from which an author presents a story—a
perspective shaped by who is telling the story and how much this narrator knows.
Although the author writes the book, the story is not typically told from the author’s
point of view. Before the author begins writing, he or she must determine what point
of view to use, because it will permeate the entire book. In a good book, the point of
view can usually be determined in the first page or two, and the author is consistent
in using this point of view throughout.
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